Skype has THE coolest function, which is a free no-overhead basic screen sharing function without any of the fuss of WebEx. It’s “Share your screen” under the “Call” menu.
You conversation partner can see your whole screen. Not lots of options, but easy as pie.
Why didn’t Kat and I know this at tax time??? Would have been much better than the convoluted scheme we ran to see almost the same screens.
I have learned that my confidence often exceeds my actual knowledge. Sometimes this doesn’t matter. But when driving, it’s mighty handy to take a glance at that map or fire up that GPS just for a moment, and find out generally where I’m going, before I head there, even if I’m pretty “sure” I know where I’m going.
I have learned that our WebEx accounts are linked to our Teleconferencing accounts in such a way that if you are hosting and close the WebEx session you hang up on everyone on the phone. Whoops!
I learned that if you have a wireless router within 3 feet of a cable modem phone, you can get interence that you don’t hear but the other people hear. Very unprofessional.
And I have learned that Comcast can reset the phone circuit to stop calls from dropping – three in one day! VERY unprofessional.
And I have learned that letting the phone company run phones is probably a good idea and I will probably go back to Verizon.
Today I learned, from NHPR and “On The Media”, about the Uncanny Valley. It turns out that if computer animation is 90% realistic, that’s cool 92% still cool. 95% all good. But when it hits 96%, it totally freaks us out. Kids cried when the Shrek princess hit that threshold. Monkeys look away.
To get the full effect, you really need to hear this podcast or check out this transcript (Monday afternoon). Then tell me what you think!
On this day, I learned multiple lessons about using a GPS. The first few are obvious – or at least they are now:
Be specific about the address! Winthrop Street is by Logan Airport, and is nowhere near Winthrop Square in Downtown Crossing. There are at least three different Summer Streets in Boston, in three different places.
Check out the GPS map view or the whole sequence of directions before you start out. Then you can pick the one to which you would actually care to go!
And this is the big one of the day: Even though it sounds like a good solution for navigating the one-ways, forget using a GPS in Very Old Boston! The Fanueil Hall area, complete with 200+ year old paved cow paths, twists and turns and small angles, seems to have named (but not labeled) roads that not distinct enough for my Garmin GPS. It freaked out! It went into an incoherent rant that went something like this as I crawled through traffic: “Turn right on Milk Stree.. recalculating turn left on [something] str… recalculating.. recalculating… turn left on .. recalculating…” Well you get the idea.
Not yet a month after I learned it (see January 11), I am learning the lesson AGAIN to keep the darn power cord with the device for which it was born and bred.
“Our real challenge is to make systems that change, not to make systems that will last”
Lynn Vogel, CIO of M D Anderson Cancer Center
Today I learned how to put contact info on my new blackberry so that it shows even when my phone is (company required) password protected and Contacts are not accessible. For someone who loses things at a heart-breaking rate, this kind of thing is important to me!
Settings > Owner > [edit to add how someone could reach you if you lost your cell phone]
Thanks to Barbara, who found out that I could do this at all!
What useful thing have you learned?
Today I was reminded that not all conference call systems give you a warning “beep” or name announcment when someone dials in. So today I learned the EASY way not to say anything that I would not say to the larger group, as others join.
I like learning lessons the easy way. The other way hurts.
What have your learned today?
Jane's Lessons Learned 